Xbox Music Updated for Windows 8.1 Preview, adds new artist view and more

When Zune was somewhat retired and replaced by Xbox Music a lot of you were bummed out. Not because a product you like had its named changed, but because the actual product somewhat regressed. The Xbox Music app that launched with Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 was lacking by many standards and even lost some features we came to love with Zune. With Windows 8.1, Microsoft is steadily improving Xbox Music to a point that we’re using it daily on our machines. The latest update furthers that march of steady progress. Let’s check it out.

Many of you running the Windows 8.1 Preview have noticed that Xbox Music has improved substantially, both in terms of aesthetics and functionality. We first looked at the update back when we were at Build. What’s new in the latest update?

New artist details –for both the Store and your collection –show everything you have from a given artist, along with that artist’s latest albums, most popular songs, and similar artists.

Redesigned the New Albums and Top Music galleries to better emphasize album art

Improvements to the way collection notifications look when the app is snapped

Aligned the look and feel of dialogs with other redesigned parts of the app

After checking out the changes for ourselves we’re liking the direction Microsoft is going. I can’t speak for the rest of the crew here, but to be honest I never touched Xbox Music on Windows 8. Now I can’t stop using it on the Windows 8.1 Preview. The difference for me has been night and day. The small changes in the latest update are very welcomed. The new artist details in the collection are handy. You can now see what you have from an artist and don’t have with one glance.

What are you guys and gals thinking of Xbox Music in the Windows 8.1 Preview? What else do you want to see added and/or improved on? Sound off below.

Just like everyone else using a WP with general understanding of technology... We hope that it will get better soon. I honestly think that windows phone OS is beautiful. Everything about it simply makes me happy. Its so elegant. And simplistic. I can't wait for it to get better. iPhone is old. Why do u think they switched to flat colors. And revamped everything in the design. Coz there threatened. Ppl like new. iPhone was old. Lol. I used to swear id stick to iPhone until windows changed the game.

Wow, listening to you guys makes me think I have my head on backwards...I never really noticed any of these issues on the phone side. Then again, I did think there were other areas that definitely needed work but not enough to remember them. =P

Haha. When you depend on your phone for business, you definitely notice things. If I didn't have my phone, I would lose customers left and right. iOS is good for business but WP8 definitely makes it seem more fun and fluid. It just feels right :)

Edits you make on the Xbox Music web client won't make it to your phone. Well, I should qualify that: if you rename a playlist: it will come across. But if you add or delete songs from playlists: not so much.

I will say when xbox music was released on win8 the first day IT SUCKED...it has gotten better and added alot of features that were missing. It is getting there. I hope you have checked it out since they have updated it. I like it still missing feautures but honestly it is slowly getting there

Just prior to reading this I loaded music on this rarely used desktop PC and thought, I miss Zune. Such a beautiful interface. It always seemed slightly un-intuitive to me, but after that learning curve was excellence.

Same thing here - I didn't use Xbox Music in Windows 8, but now I absolutely love it. It used to be too much of a hassle to browse (and most of the time I couldn't figure out how to get to the "now playing" screen), but it has improved by leaps and bounds.

Although they made Xbox music better on windows 8.1, I still use the zune desktop app as my default music player.
MS have so many developers, they could have easily brought over the design aesthetics of zune to Xbox music.

It's a step up, but I don't like that they removed the bio. To see the bio you have to actually have the song playing. It was the little things like that and getting to see pictures of the artist that I enjoyed the most. The rest is good though. I like the new layout. They still need to update their library badly. I still have CD's that aren;t on there, or even worse, they are there but the library doesn't list the hidden tracks so my 14 song CD isn't getting synced cause the library only has12 songs listed.

Xbox Music need to sync with the WP, just like the old good Zune used to do. Some one in MS, please sit these two teams together and add sync between hardware and software so they work like an ecosystem.

What you're talking about? Every music you put in your windows phone and you don't have in your pc will be displayed as a "In the cloud" music. I still think Zune is better, but integration between the xbox music in both devices are excellent!

If you weren't up till now, I don't think it'll work...I'm always freaking out if I have bank/card issues because of the transfer of payment methods changing. If I lose the 10credit/month I'll go dark =[

The biggest thing they need to improve, in my opinion, is the cloud collection. They need to fix the fact that, while you can remove albums/songs and update metadata, it doesn't sync across all of your devices. I've been trying to remove albums from my cloud collection (which can only be done on the Xbox Music website), and the changes won't sync through to my phone. The metadata changes done in the Xbox Music app doesn't sync to the site (and therefore to other devices). It just doesn't work well at all. Plus, it would be nice to be able to download all of my purchased music (or at least see everything I've purchased).

It's nice to see these welcome updates. However, Zune was far ahead of Xbox Music in many aspects and it pains me to see this still be far behind and in some dire need of work. (Especially the cloud collection and syncing between devices). I love a beautiful interface, but it needs to be practical too.

I'll take it I have no problems with my app all my music finally works I don't use the cloud makes it a lot simpler, but I like the fact u got the weeknd as the image good taste currently listening to his new stuff

Did anyone else come home to discover their Surface RT in a Bluescreen reboot loop on 8.1? I did, found it amusing. Restored to 8.0 and all is good again. I think I will wait for the release next time. haha.

How bad is the podcast support?? I love podcasts. I am happy on WP7 right now, and the Zune VS. XBOX Music debate is the main reason. It will also be one of the main things that may push be to consider another OS if it is not improved. Not like WP7 is going to be supported past this year.

I have a question. I have a music pass with a hotmail account, but I made a new outlook account, that I wanna make my primary account. When I switch over my pass, will all the music I have on my computer and phones SD card still work, or will I have to redownload it?

I think it should change over but it might take some support calls to get the information/accounts transferred properly and confirmed...you should definitely go to one of their main support sites, either on Microsoft.com or Xbox.com.

As long as u have a music pass the songs will play they're not attached to individuals I did my when my email was hacked a while back and just started a new account was kinda upset cuz I was grandfathered in the original Zune and lost ally badges which I miss I hit 300,000 plays then 100,000 before they stopped

Been a Zune subscriber and owner for years, back when my device had 4GB's! Loved the Zune software. I hope that the Music 8.1 can copy songs off my phone. I hate having to manually sync my music back. The Desktop App sucks, the Metro App is better but I barely use Metro. Sigh, I still have hope!

I like the dorection but the app will not be finished until it has all the options Zune had.....syncing, multiple song purchasing ability to sort pass songs versus purchased and a new feature cloud storage.

Agree: and I also miss the ability to create smart playlists (creating playlists for songs with a heart rate that you haven't played for 15 days, etc.) and to rate songs.
Zune was amazing and I know Xbox music will be one day. Make it quick!

Design is not bad, but its far of from what zune was offering, and zune was precursor of Metro, and was looking more like metro. this one is something different, its shame coz i thought Microsoft wants unify all his stuff finally.
second thing, still Xbox Music on WP8 is a nightmare, so I can;t move to Zune Pass, coz I need music on both devices, nice and easy to manage.

I like Xbox music on my phone and I love it on my computer. But I have been having some sync issues, I have cloud collection turned on for both of my device, and yet none of the playlists sync and most of the songs do (all but one song) which is weird because even after I added a album from the metro windows 8 app, it did sync over almost immediately. But my playlist and that one song won't. Also it won't let me buy songs through the wp8 music store with Xbox points, yet it will in the w8 version. If any one else is having these problems and fixed them please let me know. But besides that, I love it

Matching is horrendous.
On my desktop, where all of my music is stored it's downloading all of it again into a "Subscription Cache" totalling over 5GB and its still not done.

When you match a duplicate album and the old one disappears the grouping gets all jacked up.

For example, I had a duplicate album from "Bury Your Dead" which I matched. The duplicate went away, but then the first album from "Cannibal Corpse" moved up into the "Bury Your Dead" spot, and then the first album from "Converge" moved into that empty Cannibal Corpse spot and so on all the way down the list.

It realy star to be nice.... I see that MS is committed to improve the overall experience for Xbox Music ont the PC and tablet but what about WP ??? is GRD2 include any xbox music improvement ?
they change averything in the PC version but on WP, not improvement since initial lunch...

And why don't WP core apps get updated as often as W8 apps. Google does it on Android, Microsoft should do it too. There's no point in waiting months to get updates just because you want to deliver them all together. Bummer.

1. I'd simply want to get a solution to sync my recently downloaded songs from my Xbox Music to my WP8 XBox Music(Like it was in Zune & WP7.5).
2. Simple Playlist creation in WP8's XBox Music.
3. Recently Played, New Songs, Never played songs like Auto Playlist features.
4. Are these feature too hard to rejuvinate from Zune or they forgot. Its a serious mess I feel like I've downgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 8 even in terms of Syncing my WP8 with my Windows 8 Machine.

Lack of a unified method of creating playlists is my main issue. Unified meaning I should be able to create one with Zune, Windows media player or XBM and have it available in all three inyerfaces and sycable with my phone.

Now i faced a problem where i start the music player but as soon as it is on the sceen it will minimize itself to the charms bar (or left hidden pane) and never actually start. i uninstalled and installed again but nothing seems to be working.
Any ideas please help

I recently installed Windows 8.1 pro on my laptop. The Xbox music app on my laptop only shows music in my laptop (collections). I came to know after reading this only that there are additional radio and explore options as well. And i'm not getting these options in my music app.